So there’s quite a few people who are coming to Chains of Despair who haven’t been to Heart of Pargon in a while. And maybe some people who’ve never been before. For those people, here’s some basic In Character background to help you get into the event. It’s pretty basic, and you may well know more – but relevant common knowledge goes like this:

The Colourful Island

Four years ago, an island mysteriously appeared in one of Velmaneth’s oceans, complete with some indigenous tree people, known as “brocklings” or tree-people and violent monsters apparently made of shattered glass.A group of Heroes was commissioned to pick a ruler for the island. Over the course of a week, they found the source of the glass monsters and stopped it, established a shrine honouring all the Gods of Velmaneth, and named a ruler: Inigo Jones, a successful merchant who owns the Inigo Trading company. They also inadvertently created a god, Despair, the opposite of the god Hope. These gods pretty much explain themselves in terms of what their aims are.The Island became home to about 200 people, most living in a small port town.

The Glooms

Last year, due to manipulation by the insane God of Destruction, Velneshar, a group of Heroes unwittingly unleashed an endless horde of creatures called Glooms, that destroy the souls of anything near them. These Glooms have now covered the whole world, except for 11 magical domes over population centres. The only survivors who are not in some way immune to Glooms are in these domes. The domes are powered by people called Sentinels, who are gifted with the power to hold back the Glooms. There is one sentinel for every country on Velmaneth, as well as one “Anointed One” who is not bound to any one land. As long as each dome has its Sentinel, alive and inside the dome, the Glooms cannot enter them.

The Chosen

When the glooms first appeared, a group of Heroes travelled around the world, naming a Sentinel for every land, in order to establish the protective domes as fast as possible. There was, therefore, a small time in which glooms rampaged all over the world and people had to fend for themselves. On the Colourful Island, a figure calling himself The Chosen of Despair offered the people of the island a chance for survival: if they gave up their souls via a rite on the altar of Despair, they would be immune to the incorporeal Glooms. Fearing death, most of the island agreed, and gave up their souls. A small number of people had the rite forced on them, and a very small number died rather than do it.

When the Heroes came to the Colourful Island to name a sentinel, they knew that they could not raise the domes for several days. So they made the choice to name The Chosen, Despair’s Paladin, Sentinel of the Colourful Island, making no effort to free the souls Despair had. In total about 150 people survived.

The Ritual House And Its Revenants

It is impossible to teleport through Glooms – anyone who tries without adequate protection has their soul destroyed. So transport between domes is done through several ritually linked houses in each dome. Do to a problem in the original ritual linking the houses, however, a curse from one has been spread to all of the others, and periodically, the houses were roamed by a tormented spirit and the spirits of several of the failed ritualists, who attacked anyone near the house at night. A ritual has been done to displace them, but for some reason recently the Revenants have been returning - though not as frequently as before.

The Island Now

Currently, the Colourful Island is very quiet. There is not much communication with the outside, and people rarely visit. Even more rare is someone coming from the Island. On these occasions, though, they are without fail either a priest of Despair, preaching his word, or an open follower. It’s very rare for anyone to move to another dome, usually they trade for something and then go back.

I may have got some bits wrong – I’m sure someone will point it out if I did. There's also more - but this is a lot of information and I don’t want to overwhelm people.